Theory of Mind

Most animals spend all their time “eating, resting and mating”. They have very little free time. Until primates broke that trend. Since they lived on trees and plucked fruits from the tree (high calories), they got a luxury few species have – free time! Combine that with the fact that primates lived in groups, says Max Bennett half tongue-in-cheek in A Brief History of Intelligence:

“Primates seemed to have filled their open calendars with politicking.”

 

Scientists believe that politicking that led to the Theory of Mind, the ability to model the mind of another individual. What is the other individual trying to do? Why? In politicking, being able to understand the mind of other players is an obvious advantage.

 

There are a class of neurons called mirror neurons. They get activated when a primate watched others perform certain actions. See the other one peel a banana, and the observer would salivate! What evolutionary use could these mirror neurons have served?

“The main benefit is that it helps… learn new skills through observation.”

 

But just observing and copying isn’t a good way to learn. Which actions of the doer are relevant to the goal, which ones are accidental or irrelevant? Differentiating the two kinds of action (relevant or irrelevant) is key to learning. To identify which is which, the Theory of Mind and mirror neurons became key. The better those became, the more skills one could learn by just observing. In addition, a learner will inevitably face new problems, hurdles or situations when he tries a skill. Only if he understands the ultimate intent of the individual from whom he learnt can he adjust his course to still get the desired outcome. We see the importance of the Theory of Mind again.

 

Scientists believe few other species have developed the Theory of Mind at any level comparable to humans. Which is why they don’t learn much by watching others do things. But humans could do that. And that set them off on an ever-accelerating chain reaction. Skills could be transferred across individuals. Not just that, skills could be transferred across generations, further added upon by new skills learnt by successive generations. The skill base thus kept increasing over time. Skill transfer beats ingenuity by a wide margin.

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